SHC orders re-advertisement for appointment of vaccinators hired after relaxing rules

KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Friday took exception to the provincial health minister’s intervention for relaxing the qualification criteria for appointments of vaccinators in the health department and ordered re-advertisement of all such posts that were filled by relaxing the rules.

The order came on petitions of Akhtar Hussain and others seeking a direction to the health department for issuance of appointment letters to the post of vaccinators on the basis that they had already been declared successful candidates based on marks obtained in the competitive process and interviews. The petitioners also requested for the cancellation of appointments of unqualified persons.

A counsel for the petitioners submitted that the procedure for the appointment of vaccinators was flawed under the law as merit was compromised by the health department to accommodate the beneficiaries having influence. They said that while selecting the beneficiaries, who are private respondents in the case, recruitment rules for the subject post were not followed and the initial passing marks of 60 were reduced to 55 to accommodate blue-eyed ones.

They contended that the selection committee constituted by the competent authority of the provincial chief minister for conducting re-interviews of passed candidates was bypassed through a notification issued on August 7, 2019. The SHC was informed that some of the petitioners who had obtained more than 60 marks in the written test conducted by the National Testing Service were ignored.

A provincial law officer raised the question of maintainability and argued that the subject petitions were liable to be dismissed as there was transparency in the appointment procedure for such posts and the appointments was made purely on merit without any favouritism.

A division bench of the high court comprising Justice Mohammad Shafi Siddiqui and Justice Adnan-ul-Karim Memon, after hearing the arguments of the case, observed that it was well-settled principle that the qualification criteria could not be relaxed under the law and prima facie the whole recruitment process initiated by the health department was flawed.

The bench observed that it had been admitted that the NTS test was conducted for the post of vaccinators and only 1,611 candidates could qualify the written test but due to intervention by the provincial health minister as per the summary, the threshold was unilaterally reduced from 60 to 55 marks and resultantly, 3,245 candidates were made to pass the test who were subsequently interviewed by the selection committee.

The high court observed that prima facie, such approach negated the basic spirit of the terms of advertisement and recruitment rules framed by the competent authority and thus, the court could not endorse the viewpoint of the health department.

The SHC observed that prima facie, the factual position of the case explicitly showed that the appointments were made without consultation with the services, general administration and coordination department which had a pivotal role in the recruitment process and bypassing of the services department had a far-reaching effect as it was against the basic law as provided under the Sindh Civil Servants (Appointment, Promotion, and Transfer) Rules, 1973.

The bench observed that it could not agree with the inquiry report of the health department on the appointment issue for the simple reason that as per the conditions prescribed for the appointments, a candidate had to have the experience certificate for the post applied for and merely achieving a minimum of marks in the test and interview was not sufficient to be declared as a successful candidate until and unless the candidate had requisite qualification for the post.

The high court ordered that all the 1,611 successful candidates who obtained 60 marks and above in the written test conducted by the NTS were required to go through a fresh interview by the committee constituted by the competent authority. It further ordered that the rest of the posts shall be re-advertised in accordance with the recruitment rules.

The bench ordered that the appointment of the successful candidates in the interview was subject to union-wise seats as outlined in the terms of advertisement published in daily newspapers dated March 22, 2018. The high court also directed the competent authority to establish an institute for the training of vaccinators within three months.

The SHC observed that the candidates successful in the interviews were required to undergo training for the post within a reasonable time from any recognised institute of nursing or government hospital before administering vaccines to the public at large.The high court observed that the petitioners who had obtained less than 60 marks had to participate in fresh recruitment process and their petitions stood dismissed.